Resources

Schieffer: Obama Success Rests with Public

There is no way to know if President Obama's State of the Union address successfully convinced Democrats and Republicans to work together on key economic issues until the public weighs in, CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer said Thursday.

"Not much will change until we get the reaction of the people who watched this on television," Schieffer said on CBS' "The Early Show".

Mr. Obama, whose approval rating has fallen to around 50 percent amid anger over government bailouts and a double-digit unemployment rate, spent the majority of the speech discussing jobs and the economy. "Jobs must be our number one focus in 2010," he said, calling for a new employment bill.

The president's main goal was "to connect himself" with the anger and frustration felt across the country, Schieffer said.

Seventy percent of speech watchers think the president shares the same priorities for the country as they do. Fifty-seven percent thought so before the speech. And 59 percent think the president has a clear plan for creating jobs, up from 40 percent before the speech.